n," he repeated; "your wife--my mother?"

He heard a sob, not of pain, but of happiness, and knew that the blue
eyes of Sally Fortune looked out to him from the doorway of the house.

The low voice, hurried now, broke in on him.

"When I married Joan, John Bard fled from the range; he could not bear
to look on our happiness. You see, I had won her by chance, and he hated
me for it. If you had ever seen her, Anthony, you would understand. I
crossed the mountains and came here and built this house, for your
mother was like a wild bird, Anthony, and I did not dare to let men near
her; then a son was born, and she died giving him birth. Afterward I
lived on here, close to the place which she had chosen herself for rest.
And I was happy because the boy grew every day into a more perfect
picture of his dead mother.

"One day when he was almost three I rode off through the hills, and when
I came back the boy was gone. I rode with a posse everywhere, hunting
him; aye, Anthony, the trail which I started then I have kept at ever
since, year after year, and here it ends where it began--at the grave of
Joan!

"Finally I came on news that a man much like John Bard in appearance had
been seen near my house that day. Then I knew it was Bard in fact. He
had seen the image of the woman we both loved in the boy. He was all
that was left of her on earth. After these years I can read his heart
clearly; I know why he took the boy.

"Then I left this place. I could not bear the sight of the grave; for
she slept in peace, and I lived in hell waiting for the return of my
son.

"At last I went east; I was at Madison Square Garden and saw you ride.
It was the face of Joan that looked back at me; and I knew that I was
close to the end of the trail.

"The next night I called out John Bard. He had been in hell all those
years, like me, for he had waited for my coming. He begged me to let
him have you; said you loved him as a father; I only laughed. So we
fought, and he fell; and then I saw you running over the lawn toward us.

"I remembered Joan, her pride and her fierceness, and I knew that if I
waited a son would kill his father that night. So I turned and fled
through the trees. Anthony, do you believe me; do you forgive me?"

The memory of the clumsy, hungered tenderness of John Bard swept about
Anthony.

He cried: "How can I believe? My father has killed my father; what is
left?"

The solemn voice replied: "Anthony, my son!"